1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to removing gaseous sulfur compounds from gaseous streams, particularly the removal of SO2 and H2S from combustion and industrial process effluents, by using a regenerable catalyst/sorber.
2. Related Art
As one result of concern with air pollution, environmental regulators have severely reduced and are continuing to reduce allowable emissions of sulfur oxides and hydrogen sulfide. As a result, a variety of technologies have been developed and are continuing to be developed for use in flue gas desulfurization (FGD).
FGD techniques can generally be classified as wet and dry scrubbing. Dry scrubbing contacts the effluent with a solid material which chemically reacts with the sulfur component and forms a compound. The system can be a fixed bed such as zinc oxide pellets that are used to react with H2S to form zinc sulfide. The zinc sulfide pellets must be removed and replaced after saturation. The dry scrubber can also be in powder or particulate injected into the stream followed by a baghouse or electrostatic filtration to remove the reacted product. An example of powder would be limestone, which would react after injection into the exhaust stream to form calcium sulfate and/or calcium sulfite hemihydrate sludge. The material is typically delivered as a wet slurry, which dries in the exhaust and reacts with the sulfur oxides. This material is then removed and typically disposed of in a landfill. There are also regenerable dry scrubber materials such as copper oxide on aluminum oxide pellets or spheres. The regenerable copper systems must be heated to and or reduced at high temperatures. This technique requires that the sorption temperature be less than the regeneration temperature.
Wet scrubbing techniques use wet slurries or amine solutions and require that the exhaust temperature be reduced to below the boiling point of the solutions to be used. These techniques give rise to losses by evaporation and entrainment and produce products which are contaminated and unusable and must be disposed of/or purified before reuse.
The present invention introduces a new technology for the removal of H2S, SO2 and oxidation of CO. This technology utilizes a catalytic oxidative sorption process for the removal of the sulfur component where the sulfur component is first oxidized and preconcentrated and then released in a concentrated stream of much smaller volume which is delivered to processes for recovery as sulfur, sulfur dioxide, or sulfuric acid. This technology has tremendous advantages over the scrubbing techniques. It is an advantage that the present process operates in the exhaust stream with oxidative capture mode and reductive regeneration occurring at the same temperature. It is a further advantage that it is a dry process, which is selective for sulfur components and will produce sulfur oxide off gases with high concentration and purity. It is a feature of the present invention that it reduces the volume of sulfur containing gases thereby reducing the costs for further processing. It is a further feature that the process also operates over a wide range of temperatures (200xc2x0 F. to 800xc2x0 F.). It is another advantage of the process of the present invention that it has high capture efficiencies of over 99.75% and also has very low pressure drop.
One aspect of the present invention is a process for removing gaseous sulfur compounds, particularly SO2 and/or H2S from gaseous streams, such as effluent combustion and industrial process streams, comprising contacting a gaseous stream, containing gaseous sulfur compounds with a catalyst/sorber under sulfur sorbing condition, said catalyst/sorber comprising a noble metal catalyst component, a metal oxide sorber component, and optionally modifiers consisting of oxides of Ag, Cu, Bi, Sb, Sn, As, In, Pb, Au or mixtures thereof to remove said gaseous sulfur compound from said stream to said catalyst/sorber. In a preferred embodiment of the present process the gaseous sulfur compound containing stream is terminated and the sorbed sulfur is desorbed from said catalyst/sorber by contacting the catalyst/sorber with a regenerating gas stream under sulfur compound desorbing conditions whereby the catalyst/sorber is regenerated for reuse in the sorbing. A most preferred embodiment comprises alternating said sorbing and regeneration steps.
Preferred regenerating gases provide a reducing environment. The reducing agents include hydrogen and hydrocarbons or mixtures thereof. The hydrocarbon preferably comprises of C1-C12 hydrocarbons, which may be used as one compound or mixtures of compounds. Usually the reducing agent will comprise methane and/or a mixture of hydrocarbons. The principal source of methane is natural gas. The principal component of the gaseous stream is an inert carrier gas such as nitrogen, helium, argon or steam. The term xe2x80x9cprincipal componentxe2x80x9d is used to mean over 50%. The regeneration may also be carried out with the inert carried gases alone or with oxygen present. Air may also be used for regeneration.
Another aspect of the present invention is the catalyst/sorber. The noble metal component may comprise Pt, Pd, Rh, Ru or mixtures thereof, preferably Pt. The metal oxide sorber component is an oxide of Ti, Zr, Hf, Ce, Al, Si or mixtures thereof. In addition to these components, the catalyst/sorber optionally contains a modifier comprising an oxide of Ag, Cu, Bi, Sb, Sn, As In, Pb, Au or mixtures thereof, preferably Cu, Ag, Bi and mixtures thereof. The purpose of the modifier is to inhibit the formation of H2S during regeneration.
The catalyst/sorber can be used in pellet, spheres, particulate, or extruded form. Preferably the catalyst/sorber can be coated onto a carrier with the catalyst/sorber comprising 1 to 50 wt % of the total weight. The noble metal component is preferably present as from 0.005 to 20.0 wt % of the catalyst/sorber, the sorber component is preferably present as from 70 to 99 wt % of the catalyst/sorber, and the modifier is preferably present as from 1 to 10 wt % of the catalyst/sorber.
Although the sulfur compounds are removed from a gaseous stream on and/or onto the catalyst/sorber according to the present invention, it is not known in what form or by what mechanism the sulfur is associated with the catalyst/sorber. It is the invention that the sulfur compounds in the gaseous stream are in some manner releasably associated with the catalyst/sorber in an oxidizing atmosphere. It is believed that the sulfur is associated with the catalyst/sorber as a compound, most likely as an oxide, but not in the elemental form. Elemental sulfur has not been observed. Preferably the sulfur is removed from the catalyst/sorber as a more concentrated stream of sulfur compounds. Unless otherwise stated percentages and ratios of compounds expressed herein are by weight.